She lands,
leaving only dampened hands--
Evidence of her stay

Spending her most memorable time
urging a  barefooted girl to rip off
the itchy black dress stained
with sweat and graveyard soil.

Such a sour cliché
introducing me to
June, my only
heartbreak.

Tomato plants bent in half
weighted with ripened fruit,
swollen large enough to
split its skin,
steaming in the overgrown garden.
She laughs like warm rain at the way the fruit
and I hang--

suspended. Growing heavier
in the humid heat of yet
another smeared dusk.
Eerie breezes slide through the leaves,
my messy hair collecting her
featherweight secrets--

bringing still faced realizations that
it's easier to hear June whisper
"There is only one thing you can be sure of,"
than to empty the shallow oxygen stream
from my tributary mouth
back into her swallowing sea.

Tides rolling in and rolling out.
"Only one thing to which everyone agrees."

The thing about June is,
you can’t decline the annual walk.
The thing she’s hiding is
a tall ledge in a pink haze
through a field of wild strawberries.
Letting me fall with silent excuses,
I am too heavy, and she
too light--

*"The thing is, everyone will die."

Doe eyed, she looks up and asks,
"Will you carry me?"
Halving the rhythm of footfalls.
Honesty in his action hitting the
first notes of a lasting song, holding

fulfillment and fear in the
form of a little girl in arms.

Loyal through the swells- music and storm,
teaching things that he had no business knowing while
conquering things that had no business attacking him.

When the fork in the path
read that he must decide between
Rest and Moving On
he quietly comforted his aching heart
and limped further,

Apologizing all the while to the ***** faced child.
Her arms around his neck choking him, warmly.

Finding peace in their relentlessness,
certain that would
carry her when he no longer could,

taken with the idea that
death was the needed break he awaited.

Tonight, the earth is thriving.

All of the birds are sounding off.
Wet rainforest air catching,
throwing back echoing songs into the
breathing trees, towering.
Waves crash hard onto the shore,  
I mean it this time and don't
make me show you again!
Showing us again, again.
Girls in short, fluttering skirts
prance through the street in tall heels,
summer wind slipping through the
valleys of concrete jungles.

It is said that anger is a secondary emotion-- While
white hot rage swiftly climbs your ladder of ribs and seizes the heart,
something more vulnerable came before it.

Tonight, the earth is wild.

Looking at the super moon, I am searching for
anything softer than fury. Wondering what possibly came before I was
mad enough to *****, laughing bitterly instead.

Before, hugging me hard,
making me sure she meant it,
"Hi, Honey" came from her lips,
a voice too sweet to be natural.
Before, I called her Mom and
stopped knowing what the word meant.
Both of us made things
easy, until they got hard.
Before I was mad, I was happy.
There was a time it wasn't taxing to
remember our laughs tangling
into the brisk autumn air.

Growing old enough to realize we had all done
a dangerous thing, smashing two broken families into one house
and calling it whole. A full home of people feeling empty.

Tonight, the earth is warm.

Her eyes were a clear blue, thinner than water and
colder than frost, constantly shouting out the way she was lost.
Just there behind them, she was trapped, clawing to get free.

I took to feeling sorry for her to fight a blooming hatred while
savage teeth cut into my lip, holding back heaps of "how could you?"
Squeezing my eyes shut, I sat shivering in the afternoon sun.

I told my brother that I was sure I didn't love her at all,
Seeing a reflection of my hardened expression in his young face.
I said I would have to fake cry at her funeral.

Tonight, the earth is electric.

Tears on my cheeks and burning in my throat,
I despised the thought of being like her. Only making me more like her.
A terrible silence settled into our lives, emphasizing all voids

I was up late on a school night, gathering few belongings and my
dignity in a black trash bag. Driving away from that house on the hill.
Loneliness in the night chasing after a full back seat of children.

Tonight, the earth is alive.

Forgiveness is a tricky thing, the act occasionally coming
prior to the decision. Revealing the before, the hurt of missing something I had
wanted so badly. Bathing in bright moonlight,

tonight, the earth is listening.

Tonight, I would cry at her funeral.

Tonight, leaves me quietly sobbing, I have been betrayed.

My fingers barely connect with the keys
Making letters appear in perfectly straight lines,
Misspellings automatically corrected,
Bland sentences erased and replaced

If I ever wrote as well as I intended to
I would work for my words harder than
they've worked for me
I would form thoughts in shallow trenches
Working out every letter, digging the flow
Reopening blisters and blinking on stinging sweat,
if I ever wrote as well as I intended to

Let my verses stretch the length of the valley
Giving the earth a fraction of what
she has given to me
Let them climb the cliffs, bleeding
nubs of fingers guiding their path
Let my words fall to the sky in towers of smoke

And when I am finished
Let them be swallowed, corroded, and filled
Let them dissipate and separate, for no one else
will I ever write as well as I intend to

I shot a man
Erupted his brain into shreds
Shattered his slack jaw with my booted heel, they
laughed when his blood spilled,
flowing and simmering on the summer cement
Who do you trust?

If we could quit and begin again
If my actions had no consequence
If you were able to mask your true identity
If everyone only chased impulsive pleasure
Would we live differently?

I am afraid
that we are sinking
I am certain that we will slowly
poison ourselves until we become immune

Justifying our acquired weaknesses, ruining any and all friendly competition
Ignoring flags on the play that say there are too many
players on the defensive line

Who told you that this is real?
Trapped in one body for the entirety of this consciousness cannot
persuade me that I am here

Take me into the
vastness of smeared pink and blue
Where the birds find

a place to disappear
Lighten this heart of mine, let
me float where winds are

born, where the noise is
lost so that I may feel as
alone as I am,

truly

May I be excused?